Gartner BI bake-off analyzes US Opioid Epidemic Data

The Gartner Group recently hosted its 2018 BI bake-off event, aimed at getting Business Intelligence vendors to showcase their products capabilities analyzing data as part of the Data for Good movement, using public data sets that support a social cause. After analyzing traffic fatalities, college costs and homelessness in previous years, the 2018 bake-off was on data about the U.S. opioid epidemic. (See also our previous post on the Drug Overdose Epidemic)

From the bake-off blog post:

There were some consistent findings in all the demos on the descriptive side:

The opioid crisis is getting worse, not better.

New York had the most over dose deaths associated with opioids specifically.

When taking into account population density, West Virginia had the most over dose deaths due to overdoses. It’s hard to say for sure if Opioids are the highest cause as the particular drug is not always captured.

Four panelists provided their respective analysis and dashboards: Microsoft, MicroStrategy, Qlik and Tableau.

Each vendor’s demonstrations were both illustrative of their specific features / capabilities as well as interesting findings on the trends of this epidemic. For example, scatter-plots make it easy to pinpoint outliers, in some cases leading directly to doctors who are now under investigations for prescribing exorbitant amounts of drugs. In many cases, there are both short (5-min) summary videos as well as links to publicly available dashboards to discover underlying data patterns interactively.

(1) Pharmaceutical payments to doctors do not affect prescription rates. We were curious whether the data would show a correlation between pharmaceutical company payments to doctors and their rates of prescription. In fact, we found no such correlation. In other words, there is no evidence that direct payments to doctors result in higher prescription rates.

(2) State GDP and opioid usage are inversely correlated. There seems to be a correlation between state GDP and opioid usage as measured by Medicaid claims. States with lower GDPs tend to have higher opioid usage. This confirms that the opioid epidemic has economic factors.

(3) State college education rates and opioid usage are inversely correlated. There also seems to be a correlation between college education and opioid use as measured by Medicaid claims, but not a similar correlation for high school graduation rates. In other words, states with higher rates of upper education (college or beyond) tend to have lower rates of opioid use, but this doesn’t apply to high school education.

For anyone interested in understanding the opioid epidemic in more detail, having access to its public data as well as various interactive visualizations is valuable. Data for Good, indeed.

End Note: The data used in this bake-off does not align exactly with that published by various sources (CNN, NYT, WaPo) linked to in our previous post. Instead, it appears to be offset by 1 year, that is to say that the data 2015 – 2017 in the bake-off aligns fairly closely with that reported previously as for the years 2014 – 2016.

Socialize

MedicalMime is a company that specializes in healthcare technologies for medical practices throughout the United States. Our proprietary software and web based (also called “cloud based”) technologies -including our flagship dictation based EHR- enhances the patient encounter while increasing efficiency and effectiveness all while exceeding Meaningful Use guidelines in entirely new ways.

Request a Demo

ONC HIT Certification Program

ONC HIT Certification Program

Mandatory Disclosure Statement

Cost and Limitations

Medical Mime, Inc.’s M2Pro version 2.0 is a certified Complete EHR Ambulatory and is 2014 Edition Compliant. Medical Mime, Inc.’s M2Pro version 2.0 has been certified by the Drummond Group, and ONC-ACB in accordance with the applicable certification criteria adopted by the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This certification does not represent an endorsement by the U/S/ Department of Health and Human Services. Drummond Group is accredited by ANSI and approved by ONC for the ONT HIT certification Program to Certify: Complete EHR, EHR Module (all) and Certification of other types of HIT for which the Secretary has adopted certification criteria under Subpart C of 45 CFR Medical Mime, Inc.’s M2Pro v 2.0 certification number is 1112205-3047-3 and was certified on 11-12-2015 for 2014 Edition.
Clinical Quality Measures tested include: CMS068v4; CMS075v3; CMS124v3; CMS125v3; CMS126v3; CMS154v3; CMS156v3; CMS164v3; CMS166v4
Modules tested include: 170.214 (a)(1-15); (b)(1-5,7); (c)(1-3); (d)(1-8); (e)(1-3); (f)(1-3); (g)(2-4)
DrFirst Rcopia and EMR Direct phiMail were used in additional to Medical Mime, Inc.’s M2Pro version 2.0. Customers pay a monthly subscription access to Medical Mime, Inc.’s M2Pro version 2.0, this pricing model include EHR features and functionality required for attestation. Additional costs may be required for implementation and/or use of items, resources or services from third party organizations that are offered in the Medical Mime offering.

Medical Mime, Inc. agrees to notify Drummond Group of any and all future changes to our price transparency language for M2PRO.

Medical Mime, Inc. understands and agrees that the ONC HIT Certification Program final rule statement gives Drummond Group as an ONC-ACB, the sole responsibility for ensuring compliance and determining appropriate consequences if Medical Mime fails to disclose accurate price transparency information.

Medical Mime, Inc. understands and agrees to provide Drummond Group copies of or be given access to any and all websites, marketing materials, communication statements, and other assertions made by Medical Mime regarding the ONC certification status of M2Pro in a reasonable time to ensure that the price transparency information is accurately and properly disclosed.